Urban poetry

Here's one from last summer: two dogs standing guard while their owners take a break in Roger Williams Park in Providence.

Saturday reflections

A monster face smiles benignly out at the streets of Providence. This is the window at Big Nazo, a puppet-making and performing collective.

Urban poetry

That door looks as though it ought to be an exit, but there aren't any stairs, just that small balcony overlooking a rather grungy parking lot in Providence.

Urban poetry

The lettering is faded so you may not be able to read the sign, but this is The Tri-Store Bridge, in Providence.

This bridge linked three long-gone department stores -- Cherry & Webb, Gladdings and Shepard -- in what was once the retail center of downtown Providence. The Google tells me that the bridge was built in the late nineteenth century, so it would have been handy for the ladies in their long dresses to move from store to store without having to go out in the rain or snow.

Providential architecture

Some of the very cool buildings, mostly around the Brown campus (those are the main gates in the first picture.)

Saturday reflections

It was blazing hot the day we walked around Providence, and most of the interesting sites are at the top of very steep hills, so air-conditioned art galleries were a welcome break.

Here's some of the art reflected in the very glossy floors at the Providence Art Club.

First Baptist

I've seen many churches called the First Baptist, but this one in Providence is the first First Baptist, founded by Roger Williams in 1638.

They didn't get around to building an actual church until 1775, and the result is the largest surviving wooden structure from Colonial America, according to the blurb on my tourist map.

The prominent spire is modeled after the one on St Martin in the Fields in London.

I've been queuing up Providence photos to post over the next week or two. It was probably my last weekend off until I go away on vacation next month, and I want to savor it as long as I can.

Saturday reflections

An art exhibit on the Brown campus in Providence.

Adventures always look better in the rear view mirror

Astute readers will have noticed that there aren't any pictures taken on the morning ferry ride from Providence to Newport. That's because there wasn't one -- or rather, there was a ferry, and it left for Newport as scheduled at 9:30 am. We just weren't on it.

There's a free shuttle that runs from several locations in downtown Providence to the ferry, and we were at the convention center stop early. Where we waited. And waited. We called the ferry company, but the customer service desk was closed for the holiday. Jayne was on hold with the main ferry office when a beat-up Providence city bus with a Not in Service sign pulled up and the driver announced that this was the super-duper emergency backup holiday shuttle. Hurray!

The only problem was that she'd never driven the route before, and she wasn't exactly sure where she was supposed to drop us off. And we had five minutes to get there. And so though we were later told that they had held the ferry as long as they could, we ran down the ramp to the landing just as it pulled away.

The next ferry wasn't for three hours, and since the ferry landing consists of a parking lot, a trailer and a Pepsi machine in basically the middle of nowhere, hanging out for three hours wasn't an attractive option. Especially since the 12:30 ferry was completely booked and there was no guarantee they'd even let us on it.

That's when one of the women selling tickets, now and forever to be known as Saint Lori of Providence, came to the rescue. She arranged for a van to pick the seven of us up and drive us to Newport, where we arrived at Perrotti Park only a couple of minutes after our ferry did.

Needless to say, those of us on the 5 o'clock ferry returning to Providence were in line by 4:30.

Greetings from Providence

No birds today. I'm spending the holiday weekend in Providence with my friend Jayne. Though I've passed through here several times, I've never actually stayed. But it's charming.

More pictures will follow.